Malika Glover joined the Youngstown State women's basketball coaching staff prior to the 2020-21 season, and she enters her third season in 2022-23.Glover’s role on the staff includes assisting with recruiting, player development and scouting, and she helps with the team’s social media strategy.
Glover has been the position coach for student-athletes who have been major contributors her first two seasons.In 2021-22, she worked individually with Horizon League All-Defensive Team pick Mady Aulbach and starting wing Megan Callahan. Aulbach was YSU’s top defensive guard as the Penguins had their best scoring defense ever at the Division I level. The defense was key as the program captured its first regular-season crown in 23 years.
Glover worked directly with two student-athletes in her position group that made a major impact in 2020-21. Freshman Malia Magestro made 18-of-35 from 3-point range for an eye-popping 51.4 percent success rate, and she helped the Penguins lead the Horizon League in 3s per game for the seventh straight season. Magestro was named YSU's Sixth Player of the Year, and Aulbach received the team's Defensive Player of the Year award.
In 2021-22, YSU captured the program's first regular-season conference title in 23 years. Youngstown State finished the season 24-7, winning at least 24 games for the third time in program history and for the first time since 1997-98. After an 8-0 start, YSU followed a loss at Penn State with a seven-game winning streak from Dec. 17 through Jan. 14. YSU then had a five-game winning streak in February, giving the Penguins three separate winning streaks of at least five games for the second season in school history. YSU set a new school record for conference wins, regardless of conference with 18, and the Penguins also tied the Horizon League record for conference wins, matching IUPUI in 2021-22 and Green Bay in 2008-09 and 2010-11. At 9-0, YSU had its best start ever to conference play.
During Glover's first season with the Penguins, YSU won 10 if its final 15 games to finish the 2020-21 campaign with a 10-8 record. YSU had its best field-goal percentage in 23 seasons at 44.6 percent, and it had its best 3-point field-goal percentage in six years at 34 percent.
Glover came to YSU after serving as the video coordinator and assistant recruiting coordinator at South Dakota in the 2019-20 season.
In her lone season at South Dakota, Glover helped the Coyotes compile a 30-2 record, sweep the Summit League regular season and win the Summit League Tournament. With Glover working alongside head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, South Dakota achieved the highest national ranking bestowed upon a Summit team, coming in at No. 11 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll. The Coyotes also broke a program record for regular-season wins with 27, and they beat Summit League opponents by an average of 32 points per game.
Glover played collegiately at Northern Kentucky before the Norse joined the Horizon League. With Plitzuweit as her head coach at NKU, Glover was the President of the Atlantic Sun Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (A-Sun SAAC) in 2015 and the organization's secretary in 2014. She received the 2015 Dr. Leon Booth Most Inspirational Award and was involved in a pair of University search committees during her time as a student-athlete.
Glover earned her bachelor's degree from Northern Kentucky in 2014 and completed her master's degree in public administration in 2016.
A native of East Lansing, Mich., Glover has taken four service trips since 2012 to the Ukraine, Moldova, Togo and Belize. She also worked with Hand-in-Hand Ministries in Louisville, Ky., as a program coordinator.
